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In the roughly 24 hours following the attempted assassination of former President DONALD TRUMP, President JOE BIDEN addressed the country on the matter three times, repeatedly calling for unity and condemning political violence of any sort.

During an address Sunday evening from the Oval Office, Biden drew a clear line between the “peaceful debate” that’s essential to American democracy and a descent from hostile rhetoric into a violence that could threaten it.

The president, two senior aides said, is likely to reiterate that message this week in three major interviews over as many days — a media blitz timed to the Republican convention that is going ahead as planned even in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.

Although Biden’s planned trip to Texas on Monday was rescheduled for later in the month following the attack, there was no real consideration of canceling the interview he’d planned to do there with NBC News’ LESTER HOLT, who instead sat down with the president Monday afternoon at the White House. And the pause in campaign activities is likely to last just one day.

In the first clip released by NBC, Holt asked Biden if he regrets calling Trump “an existential threat” or telling donors last week that it was time to put Trump “in the bullseye.”

“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden allowed. “I meant focus on him, focus on what he was doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.”

The president, not shy about highlighting Trump’s own history of incendiary comments, continued: “I’m not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a dictator on day one.’ I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election.”

“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when [Trump] says things like he says?” Biden asked. “Do you just not say something because it may incite somebody? Look, I have not engaged in that rhetoric. My opponent has engaged in that rhetoric.”

Anything the president says in the days following the nation’s most brazen political assassination attempt since 1981 will be closely watched. That said, Biden’s interviews this week, even with the still unresolved drama of the last weeks and lingering Democratic unease about his candidacy, may be relegated to the B story considering the dramatic stagecraft in Milwaukee: Trump’s first public appearance since Secret Service agents pulled him offstage on Saturday and suspense around the announcement of his running mate, Sen. J.D. VANCE of Ohio.

“It's always hard to counter-program anybody’s convention. That’s where the entire press corps is, where everybody’s focus is. And that would have been the case even without the assassination attempt,” said Democratic consultant JOE TRIPPI. “But even in a week where it’s tough to break through, we have to continue to make the case that [Trump] is a threat to democracy, to women’s rights — and that Project 2025 is Donald Trump, no matter how much he says he doesn’t know about it.”

The president is now on his way to Las Vegas for events Tuesday and Wednesday aimed at rallying support from Black and Latino voters, as well as two more interviews there with BET and Univision radio.

Those interviews, the aides added, were likely to carry a greater emphasis on top issues for those constituencies: curbing inflation and lowering costs, defending reproductive rights, wage gains for Black people and Latinos, expanded access to health care and caps on the costs of insulin and prescription drugs.

Biden’s sit down with BET on Tuesday, which will be featured as part of an hour-long special, will be his 50th interview of the year, according to the White House’s tally. The ramped up media push comes after months where the president was surprisingly cloistered for an incumbent seeking reelection, even turning down a Super Bowl pregame interview with CBS News.

Aides say the ramp-up is following the normal course for an election year and began before the June 27 debate, where Biden’s addled performance set off alarm bells about his viability as the Democratic nominee. They pointed to sit-downs with CNN and ABC News in late May and early June, respectively, and said that more interviews are being arranged for the weeks ahead leading up to next month’s Democratic convention in Chicago.

They also noted that Biden has started doing more informal and unscripted events, speaking off the cuff to patrons at a Detroit-area restaurant last Friday and to union members during a stop in Pennsylvania days earlier. Just as Biden was ratcheting up his rhetoric against Trump in an effort to shift the focus from his own age to the GOP nominee, the assassination attempt has complicated his ability to deliver full-throated attacks.

But as Biden’s top aides discuss how to thread the needle, they know they still need to focus voters on Trump’s positions on abortion and other issues, his felony conviction, the civil judgments against him and his own litany of prior comments stoking division and violence.

“There's an opportunity to drive those contrasts and do it with the language and the tone being more mindful of making our arguments without it sounding like combat,” said KAREN FINNEY, a Democratic consultant who was a senior adviser and spokesperson for HILLARY CLINTON’s 2016 campaign. “One thing that many Americans appreciate about President Biden and respect is that he is someone who in these kinds of moments brings it back to the better angels of our nature. He has an opportunity to do that this week, but he still has to talk about contrasts on issues that people really care about.”

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POTUS PUZZLER

When was the United States Secret Service first created?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

A BRIEFING ROOM UPDATE: Homeland Security Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS joined the daily briefing on Monday, telling reporters that he has “100 percent confidence” in the Secret Service director after the attempted assassination of the former president. Mayorkas said there continues to be a “heightened and very dynamic threat environment,” and adjustments have been made to the security details for Biden, Vice President KAMALA HARRIS and Trump.

He said that the administration is in the process of setting up an independent review into the rally shooting, the findings of which will be made public. Mayorkas said that the administration is open to having someone outside the government conduct the review so its independence could not be doubted, calling it imperative to “have the confidence of the people.”

THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH: President Biden will unveil a new proposal in Nevada on Tuesday to cap rental costs nationwide, WaPo’s JEFF STEIN and RACHEL SIEGEL scooped. They report that the “policy push reflects the White House’s efforts to respond to widespread voter anger over high housing prices, which have soared since the pandemic and undermined Biden’s standing among voters about the economy.”

FIRST LADY TO (FORMER) FIRST LADY: First lady JILL BIDEN spoke with MELANIA TRUMP on Sunday afternoon after the Pennsylvania rally shooting, The Hill’s ALEX GANGITANO reports. Their conversation came a day after their husbands’ phone call (Biden said he and Trump had a “short but good conversation”).

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: Anything about Biden’s call for unity in his Sunday Oval Office address. Staffers have been sharing clip after clip of the speech, as well as positive reactions from fellow Democrats (peep BARACK OBAMA).

President Biden also followed up with a fresh X post Monday morning: “While we may disagree, we are not enemies. We are neighbors, friends, co-workers, citizens, and — most importantly — we are fellow Americans. We must stand together.”

White House deputy communications directors JENNIFER MOLINA and HERBIE ZISKEND and senior spokesperson ANDREW BATES were among the many promoting the speech on social media.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece from NYT’s JEANNA SMIALEK and ALAN RAPPEPORT, who write that President Biden is struggling to take credit for — and see political benefits from — his economic policies in Pennsylvania, even when they’re providing real and visible results.

In Erie, a long-struggling town bordering the Great Lake, the Biden administration is heavily contributing to an ambitious $25 million construction project. But the politician who’s taking the credit? Rep. MIKE KELLY, a Republican who voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law that’s funding the renovation.

Biden’s political problem in the key swing state underscores a harsh reality: Despite the money he’s funneled over, his administration is still being blamed for inflation, and that’s dominating everything else.

CAMPAIGN HQ

AN EARLY READ ON THE VEEPSTAKES: In the moments after Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, Biden campaign chair JEN O’MALLEY DILLON blasted out a statement saying Trump selected him because he “will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6; bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people.” She also warned that Vance would back efforts to ban abortion and roll back health care protections, pointing to his prior support for elements of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposal.

As he was leaving Washington Monday afternoon to travel to Nevada, Biden told reporters that Vance was “a clone of Trump on the issues.” Harris, for her part, called Vance and left him a voicemail welcoming him to the race.

YEAH, HE REALLY NEEDS PENNSYLVANIA: Today’s New York Times/Siena College poll shows President Biden is locked in a tight race with Trump in Pennsylvania — a state he almost definitely needs to secure a second term.

The survey, fielded before Trump’s apparent assassination attempt in Butler, shows Trump leading Biden by 3 percentage points in the state, a result that’s within the margin of error and unchanged from the previous Times/Siena poll in May. But perhaps just as concerning for Biden is that the survey found Virginia — which he won by 10 points 2020 — now appears to be competitive. Biden has a lead of just 3 percentage points in the state among likely voters, which is also within the margin of error.

The poll also found that Harris is slightly outperforming Biden in both states.

MEANWHILE IN MILWAUKEE: As attention turns to Milwaukee for the Republican convention, Democrats and Biden-aligned groups are still trying to have an on-the-ground presence around the city.

Ben, who is there for us this week, spotted some trucks posted outside the perimeter of the convention grounds urging Wisconsin residents to “reject Trump’s playbook” on a nationwide abortion ban, family separation policies and tax breaks for the wealthy. The message is sponsored by groups like United We Dream Action and America’s Voice.

Also spotted (and promoted online by the DNC): A sign plugging Biden’s infrastructure law.

THE BUREAUCRATS

CONGRATS TO OUR VERY OWN: POLITICO’s EUGENE DANIELS takes over today as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association for the 2024-2025 term. Eugene is not only a stellar reporter, but he’s also a kind and generous colleague. We are incredibly proud of him and have no doubt that the WHCA is in good hands this next year. (Y’all should definitely start hitting him up about White House Correspondents Dinner tickets ASAP!! We hear he’s really looking forward to that part of the job.)

JANET YELLEN: PARTS UNKNOWN: The diminutive 77-year-old Treasury secretary is hardly known for her spicy personality. She has no tattoos. And that may be why JANET YELLEN’s travels — and her clear enjoyment of local food and drink over her 300,000 miles of travel these last three-plus years — have generated so much interest.

As NYT’s Alan Rappeport reported over the weekend, Yellen has become the Biden administration’s unlikeliest ANTHONY BOURDAIN, making headlines and going viral for going out of her way to find time on the road for BBQ in North Carolina, In-N-Out burgers in California and even magic mushrooms in Beijing.

Agenda Setting

TODAY IN FEDSPEAK: Federal Reserve Chair JEROME POWELL hinted on Monday that an interest rate cut could be coming, CNBC’s JESSE POUND reports. Although Powell made clear in his remarks at the Economic Club of Washington D.C. that he did not intend to send any signals about if and when the Fed would start to make cuts, he said that the central bank will not wait until inflation hits 2 percent.

“The implication of that is that if you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2 percent, you’ve probably waited too long, because the tightening that you’re doing, or the level of tightness that you have, is still having effects which will probably drive inflation below 2 percent,” Powell said.

THE SUN BELT’S EVICTION PROBLEM: President Biden’s new plan to address rental costs makes a lot of sense when you consider this new data from the Eviction Lab, a research unit at Princeton University, showing that tenant evictions in major cities in the Sun Belt continue to be stuck above pre-pandemic levels.

WSJ’s WILL PARKER reports that evictions are up 35 percent or more compared with pre-2020 norms in cities such as Las Vegas, Houston and Phoenix — where more than 8,000 eviction notices were filed in the month of January alone. Parker writes that apartment asking rents in Las Vegas rose 27 percent in 2021 alone and single-family-home rents have risen by nearly 32 percent since October of 2019.

OH, LOOK! ANOTHER HEAT WAVE: About 100 million people — from Florida to Maine — are under heat alerts for the next several days, WaPo’s IAN LIVINGSTON writes. The high temperature in Washington today reached 102 degrees, and it felt like over 105 for most of the afternoon.

Awesome. Just what we all need right now.

What We're Reading

To the World, Trump 2.0 Looks Even More Likely Now (POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi)

Trump Once Unified Democrats and Divided Republicans. The Shooting And Debate Turned the Tables. (POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin)

The Worst Is Not Inevitable (The Atlantic’s Michael Powell)

The Democratic Party’s Strange Attraction to Defeatism (NY Mag’s Jonathan Chait)

America is staring into the abyss (FT’s Edward Luce)

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

The Secret Service Division was formed on July 5, 1865, as part of the Department of the Treasury and was initially created to combat counterfeiters.

A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it!

Edited by Steve Shepard and Rishika Dugyala.